


Bedbugs in the Bunker

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Charlie Lives, Dean is Bad at Feelings, Human Castiel in the Bunker, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Team Free Will, aka the way s10 was supposed to end, grace cure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 18:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5596708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean isn't about to let an infestation take over his home. Bring it, you evil sons of bitches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedbugs in the Bunker

**Author's Note:**

> edit 4 typos

Considering Dean had a fucking burning brand on his arm for so long, he isn't surprised to find a rash where it used to be. Sam raises his eyebrows when he sees him rubbing his forearm against the table.

"It's nothing," Dean says. "Just a... rash. Or something."

The Mark has been gone for two weeks.

Dean stirs sugar in his coffee and itches.

A blazing sigil had to leave some kind of damage, especially coupled with pure angelic grace sizzling the shit out of it. Maybe angel grace has some weird chemical combination Dean is allergic to or something. At first he thinks the Mark still got some hold on him, but a few hunts later, nothing happens.

It's just a rash.

They're not looking that hard for cases anyways. Maybe Dean's lower back hurts when he drives for too long, but he isn't quite forty yet so that isn't an excuse. But there's Jody. Donna. The kids. Charlie drops by often enough that there's a duffel bag of clean clothes in one of the bunker's spare bedrooms. Some of the old hunter network still talks to them; they get called for research questions sometimes. Most of their hunts are just that - assists, checking out tips. Sam and Dean spend more time on the phone than they do googling 'weird deaths'.

Cas can help on the phone lines. He does a spooky good impression of some FBI higher-up. Lots of lore up in his angel head, too.

Not that he has much else to do.

Dean doesn't trust him on hunts yet, not after the idiot gave up his last scraps of grace to rid Dean of the Mark. He still has to gather himself after the recoil and wears earplugs in the gun range. Can't hit the target in the head, can't go hunting. No one's got time to babysit. Cas will squint at him when he says this and sometimes there's a fight but in the end Cas gets to stay curled up on Sam's bed with the Netflix. They take him along when Jody calls about a herd of duendes in Sioux Falls, but Cas ends up just failing to help Claire with her history homework. Apparently the textbook is all wrong. Not like that's not gonna help her write her report.

Besides, Dean needs to just... be away from Cas sometimes.

It's the fucking things he does. Wearing dirty socks for three days straight. Forgetting that he has to shave. Sleep schedule all over the place. Eating at weird times because he can't comprehend standard mealtimes. Cas always misses dinner; spend hours slaving over a hot stove, and the fucker says he isn't hungry. Fast forward to two in the morning and Dean can't even sneak a beer without catching Cas redhanded, shoving the plate Dean made up for him to the back of the fridge.

"I like the acidity," Cas says one night when Dean finds him with a crusty bottle of honey-mustard, a pile of sliced onions, and white bread. He carefully slices up pickles to layer into the sandwich and scratches his arm. Cas doesn't normally do awkward gestures, but he's learning.

"I wanna puke, man," Dean says, and scratches his arm.

It's been four weeks since the Mark and he's still itching.

Cas frowns and grabs for Dean's arm, hands snapping useless when he recoils.

"It's just a rash," Dean says. "Probably from you burning the crap outta me."

Cas scowls, but Dean's already leaving.

The next morning Cas is hovering over the coffee machine, probably pissed he can't angel mojo it into functioning anymore. A pair of old pajama pants Dean isn't skinny enough to wear anymore are tied loosely around his waist. Some black bathrobe he picked up at Goodwill is open, leaving his chest bare. He's rubbing his hip against the tabletop, frowning. Pressing his arm against the hot glass of the coffeepot.

Dean grunts at him, and that's their Good Morning.

Three years of college dorms and apartments, the whole dog shebang, and Sam still sucks at cooking. But he's the fucking early riser in the family, and he lays out toast and too-crispy eggs. Cas accepts his plate with a soft smile, like he won't do for Dean.

The blender's buzz fills the silence over the table.

"Anyone want some smoothie?" Sam calls over the roar.

"Please." When Sam gives him his glass, suddenly Castiel stands up and opens his robe.

"Whoa, dude, keep it in the bedroom," Dean says around a mouthful of toast.

"You okay, dude? That's, um. Oh. Shit." Sam is frowning, and Dean looks.

There's some little red bumps on Castiel's hip, his chest. He rolls up the sleeve of his arm and there's more there, too.

It looks a lot like Dean's rash.

Everything clicks and the world is gonna fucking end again. This time, to the sound of Sam's laughter.

 

 

 

"Three days," Sam says. "Musta been. Eight years ago?"

"Before you died."

"The first time."

"Yeah."

Pause. "Right. We didn't drive the Impala for like, three days. Slept in a tent. Spent four hours in a laundromat while Dean-"

"And I kept finding them," Dean says. "I'd raise a bit of carpet and find another fucking bedbug crawling around in there."

"Car stank like insecticide for days."

"And it wouldn't even kill them."

Cas interrupts. "The species you are referring to is harmless. They cause itching and-" he scratches his arm "-discomfort to certain humans who have a reaction to their bite."

"Not me," Sam grins.

"I don't think it's necessary to exterminate them." Cas finishes.

"We can't get an exterminator in the bunker anyways," Dean grumbles.

It must've been that motel outside of Sioux Falls. Or the one in Des Moines. Maybe even before Mark came off. Or hell, maybe it was even that cabin, where Dean bled on a filthy mattress and Cas - when Cas removed the Mark. Who the hell knows. They've been in some dank places, but the bunker is supposed to a safe space that Dean can go to town on with bleach and a mop whenever the hell he wants, and now it's been dragged to the dirt by the fucking life.

Maybe the Mark was covering up the bites before. Cas has only been human for a month, and fucking Sam doesn't react to the bites. Who knows how deep this invasion lies.

They're gonna kill every last one of these evil sons of bitches.

 

 

 

 

"So get this," Sam says, and Dean cringes on instinct.

"They like to live in books. Check it out." A horror story at the University of Washington, kids bringing infestations home at the library. "This is some serious shit. We're gonna have to clean everything, and I mean _everything_. And we don't even have an autoclave. But, uh, we can throw some stuff in the oven, and -"

"Can they get through locked doors? The lower levels, the dungeon? "

Pitying face, great. "Dean, they can get anywhere."

Cas still looks uncomfortable with Operation Bedbug Holocaust. "Perhaps some sort of bug repellant-"

"No," Sam and Dean say in unison.

This isn't fucking happening. Fucking bedbugs want to bring a war to Dean's home turf, they better brace. Dean's dealt with the Apocalypse before; he ain't nothing to fuck with. Swarming mini bugs don't have shit on Dean. They're gonna win this war.

The insidious evil of bedbugs is that they aren't there until you look for them. Every mattress flipped and every pillow removed from its case has little brown spots or even the little fuckers in the flesh. Sam squeezes each one he finds between his thick paws; Dean isn't going to touch them, thanks. All of their clothing, fabric, even Charlie's old duffle is thrown into a series of six industrial sized garbage bags.

"We can't bring it back until we're clean," Dean insists.

Sam gnaws his thumb. "Just put it in fresh bags-"

"New, clean bags-"

"Tie em-"

"Tight as fuck."

"We'll just stash it all the in car."

"And we can sleep in... uh."

A motel, right. As if they can be trusted.

Four hours in a laundromat won't be easy, but they've got bourbon hidden in a bottle of Coke. Sam wants to start on the books and fucking ditches them there in the one dusty little laundromat of Lebanon. Cas insists if they leave someone will jack their shit, but Dean goes to get another Coke and a few potato wedges from the convenience store across the street anyways. When he gets back Cas is officially tipsy and trying to fuck with the vending machine. There's a skinny guy outside the window trading suspicious fistbumps with passerby, a woman in a stained hoodie dropping coins all over the floor, kids wiping FunYun crumbs on their shirts while their mom smokes cigarettes outside. Two drunk guys occupying six washers at once aren't too shady looking, but punching the snack machine is just going too far.

"Don't kill it," Dean says, shoving a Jojo in his hand. "Here." The attendant's face is buried in Good Housekeeping, so Dean sips the Coke and then stealthily refills it under his coat. "C'mon, man, it's just potato."

"I don't want that," Cas thumps the machine again. Squintface #23 on his face. The face that said he was about a smite a motherfucker, back when he was an angel.

"You pressed the numbers right?"

Withering eyes, cold as ice. "I know how to use a vending machine, Dean," he sneers. "It won't give me anything. No matter what I press. I put in a dollar fifty, and - I. Oh." Bending, he pulls the last two quarters out of the return slot, reinserts them again and again until the old machine finally swallows them. Cas is still learning just how infallible human technology is. His fingers hover over the numbers, and he pauses. Nose scrunched, he's peering close at the items again.

"Maybe I should get.... Red Vines," he says.

Sometimes this happens. Take Cas to the grocery store and he starts tripping out on all the types of mustard. Why does this one cost more for the same amount. Why is high fructose corn syrup in this. Dean, what is the difference between Stoneground and Pure stoneground. Dean, why does a product naturally preserved in vinegar need additional preservatives. You know, they kept this in clay jars for years at a time. What Western family? How is this 'natural' when it contains artificial colors? It's fucking annoying.

"There are six flavors of Corn Nuts. But - doesn't Sam enjoy the Nature's Valley granola bars?"

"Sam isn't here. Get whatever you like."

"I trust Sam's judgement," Cas says. "I have never seen these elephant cookies before."

"Lookit those," Dean points. "Real fruit juice. You'll like it."

The texture of the fruit snacks fascinates Cas. After six treats are reduced to a gummy paste in his hand, he scrapes it off his fingers with his teeth, chews, smiles. In the end Dean gives him more quarters so he can get another pack.

Something clenches in Dean's gut, the sight of an angel tipsy and binging on snacks. There's some talk show on the TV at the laundromat. Volume is too low to hear, but Dean can at least pretend he's watching it.

It was Castiel's choice.

It was a fucking stupid choice.

They never discussed it, after the initial fight. One night they were screaming in the others face, and the next morning Dean set down a plate of toast too firmly on the table, orange juice splooshing out of a plastic cup.

"Guess you gotta eat now," he said, and that was it.

Sometimes Cas and Sam talk in low tones when they think Dean can't hear.. Bowed heads over the table while Dean works, quiet murmurs of conversation he doesn't get to hear. Soulful gazes and hands pressing shoulders. Their buddy-bro act, Dean doesn't buy it one bit. They're giant fucking saps behind the scenes, probably with their very own secret Netflix profile of romance movies. Sometimes they go to the farmer's market when Cas happens to be awake early enough. There's searches for guinea pigs in the internet history. Something happened while Dean had the Mark, and Sam and Cas are besties now. If Cas wants to have heart-to-hearts, he goes to Sam.

At least he isn't selling fucking lottery tickets and cleaning bathrooms. Something in Dean's throat closes up when he remembers that stupid Gas-N-Sip vest. That night -

Yeah.

Well.

He glances at Cas again, leaning back in the dinky plastic chair. Underneath bare fluorescent lights, set to the drone of the dryers, Cas is mundane and monotonous. Cowlick of hair getting greasy, smile too lax and loose. The first smile he ever gave Dean was just with his eyes. Maybe a loosening of the edge of his mouth. He was still an angel, still the most terrifying thing Dean had seen in his life, but Dean was the one who put it there. Now Cas smiles a lot for no damn reason and sometimes, just sometimes, it triggers the memory of a prescription bottle's rattle.

Dean brought him there, then.

It's 2015. That world Zachariah showed him didn't fucking happen and never will.

Without a word, Dean just reaches and Cas drops some gummies into his palm.

The dryer dings. Cas sets the sheets for another ten minutes and texts Sam.

 

 

 

Thing is, Sam's been spending a lot of time in the library.

He's got quite a few years of cases to write down. Thousands of creatures they've encountered. The old research folders on his laptop are a mess, his notebooks are scribbled, but he's got enough there and between his own memory and Dean's to write coherent reports. There's always the Supernatural books if they get stuck. Not that they own copies anymore, because no, but there's pdfs and obsessed fans online. Sam's not trying to be a... legacy or whatever, but he likes this work. Knowledge is power and all that.

Maybe it's a bit of an escape.

It's either hack his way through the Dean-n-Cas tension or just walk away. He gets back from a jog and they're not looking at each other. He comes back with armloads of groceries and they're in the middle of a stare-off. One of them will leap to help him put stuff away and the other leaves the kitchen. Cas is dragging himself through humanity, and the guy he gave up his grace for doesn't even call him down to the table for dinner. Oh, Dean hollers to ask if he's hungry, but even when Cas doesn't reply or says no Dean will make up a plate for him just to aggressively cover it in plastic wrap, bitching all the time. Cas locks himself for days in his room, shuffles around in pajamas. He's terse with Dean, but he asks Sam all the questions. "I feel each second of time dragging in my fingertips," he'll say. A hangnail won't stop bothering him. His legs ache and he doesn't know why. He's blind - "no, I mean, I see the third dimension fine, but that's it-", he has phantom wing sensations, he walks into doors all the time. Once he soared through the flesh and bone, using it as an anchor, and now it's all he is. Sam tries to understand. Three and a half billion years of celestial radiation isn't something that can be reduced to human. It's some penance thing, this throwing away all he ever was to assuage his guilt. To find some kind of peace with himself. To save Dean.

So yeah, he can teach Cas how to do this human shit. He can listen to Dean bitch. It's all he can do.

Dean gave Cas a pack of razors, but Sam is the one who taught him to shave. When Cas cut himself Sam had to cradle his jaw and show him the right amount of pressure, ignoring Dean's face in the bathroom mirror.

Whatever they're dealing with is none of Sam's business. He's there for both of them. But. He needs his own fucking space sometimes. Something that isn't caught up in all their crap.

Anyways.

Once Dean whips out the flask before they head to the laundromat, Sam knows. Dean and Cas have been... okay for the past few days, and now they're going to get drunk in a fucking laundromat and Sam is not going to be there for this. Sam hasn't seen traces of bugs in the library, so he can volunteer himself for the job.

He's not working as hard as he should be. There's a file on Leviathan he sticks some post-it notes to for a future update. Four hours later he's flipping through something about scrying spells and there it is, a squashed bug glued to the page.

Shit.

His phone dings off with a text from Cas telling him the laundry is done. Spares him from having to deal with it for now.

 

 

 

The bunker has been torn apart and they're not even close to done. Charlie set them up with a new credit card after they tried to get pizza only to find Mr. Beckett's card was frozen. It's no trouble to set them up at the Marriot. They have Yelp reviews and corporate policy. A cringe shivers Dean's wrist when he hands the card over, but fuck it. Cheap motels are what got them into this. Cas wants to take the couch, but he also stretches a lot in the mornings. The room he's commandeered in the bunker lacks Dean's sweet memory foam, and Jimmy was a few years older than Dean. Once they fold out the bed it's sagging and stained. Dean and Castiel pause, staring, and Sam has to save the day.

"Yeah, no. Bed's plenty big, Cas."

Well.

Dean has shared a bed with Sam before. For all his sprawling limbs and six AM alarms Sam is a sound sleeper. He has dreams. Dean knows he still has deams. But his little brother, sick little Sammy, somehow sleeps sounder than Dean. Dean doesn't have dreams, not ones he can remember. Yet his hand still gropes for a blade in the night.

Crowley did something with it. Dean doesn't know what. It's another one of Sam and Castiel's secrets.

The Blade used to sleep under his pillow.

Pink slants of light wake Dean up too early. He's gonna put on his freshly-cleaned slippers, head downstairs for three cups of coffee. but he's watching the shapes on the other bed. Neither one is on the floor; they've found a perfect configuration. Sam sprawled out around Cas's huddled shape. Black socks too big on Castiel's flung-out foot. Hands clenching the pillow. Facing Dean.

Paying over a hundred dollars a night mean they actually get a pretty sweet breakfast. Dean eats three pancakes stacked with eggs and butter and syrup before he fills paper plates with a mess of scrambled eggs and sausage. Between balancing three plates in one arm and cradling three coffee cups in the other, he barely makes it back to the room without spilling. Headbutting the door to knock, Cas yanks it open. Hair disheveled, the flannel shirt he slept in wide open and revealing bug bites. Sam's in the shower.

Dean shakes himself out of... something and drops his load. Cas reaches for Sam's coffee and he shakes his head. Two-thirds coffee and one-third milk, half a packet of sugar for just enough sweetness to blunt the edge. That's Castiel's coffee. They don't talk until Sam get's out of the shower, and then it's all of them fumbling through a morning routine until they're back at the bunker. Back to work. Lunch is a rushed affair, but they make it through all the books and file boxes.

There's a stack of curse boxes and dangerous objects in the dungeon no one wants to talk about, but Cas is the one to lock himself in the dungeon with two cans of spraypaint. He ignores everything Dean says, but Dean stands guard right outside, the hiss of Cas painting new wards barely helping.

"He knows magic better than any of us," Sam shrugs.

True. All of his knowledge is still there. Castiel is - was a cosmic vibration. Maybe he's trapped in a human body now, but dude once vibed out with the ancestors of terrestial life at the bottom of the ocean. In an abstract sense, Dean can imagine how old he is, but 'three and half billion years... well. Dean is thirty-seven and has to tell Cas that CSI isn't real. But Cas has his own stories. A farmer in Sumer arguing with his brothers about which wheat plants would breed best together. Battle stories of chemical warfare between cyanobacteria. Castiel murmurs to himself in ancient languages and can undo hours of research with an offhand memory. Thousands of years of humans researching magic are a kindergartener's ABC song to an angel.

Fine. But if something happens, he's got his phone in there with him.

Dean spends three hours shaking every loose drawer in the bedrooms, moving all the furniture. When he regroups with Sam the lazy ass is reading about scrying spells.

"I'm just saying," Sam says in defense. "We could use this and find every single bug in here. Look, if we can just get it to lock on their DNA signature.." He scrapes a bit of squashed bug from the book onto his fingernail. It's disgusting. "This could be enough right here."

"So we can find them, round 'em all up, and what? Bug excorcism?" Dean frowns. "I mean, we'd have to do some heavy modifications to the spellwork, but that's... pretty fucking genius, Sammy."

Sam's opens his mouth and shuts it. His hair whips around his face as he turns to the laptop.

The Latin name for bedbugs is Cimex lecturalius.

 

 

 

 

Cas looks over the spell for them, makes a few adjustments. In the end he's the one to do it, locking his consciousness with every damn bug in the bunker and then expelling them all to an empty field three miles outside of the city limits, the one with what could be a meth trailer near-constantly parked in it. Sam was all for sending them to Hell, but they've got an uneasy balance with Crowley right now. No need to rock the boat - or bed, Dean snorts, but a look from Sam and fuck. Don't mention the Flickr albums, they don't exist.

It's good, real good to be back in control again. Dean takes it upon himself to re-dress all the beds, while Sam organizes laundry. Cas thinks he can create a new kind of warning sigil against bedbugs. That would be something Dean will never leave home without, so good for Cas.

Dean takes a bundle of sheets to Cas's room and starts refitting his bed. Even after all the cleaning Cas supposedly did there's a mess of garbage on the desk. Sighing, Dean figures he might as well pick it up.

He's about to toss a handful of crap into the garbage when he stops.

A paper menu from a diner. The diner, the one they stopped at driving back from the cabin. After Dean nearly destroyed himself and Castiel gave up his grace to cure him. Reciepts from Wal-Mart and Goodwill, where Dean bought him clothes. The plastic packaging of the pack of razors Dean got for him, when he was too busy feeling like shit to even teach him how to shave. The wrapper of the fruit snacks Dean picked out for him in the laundromat. Every fucking scrap and piece of garbage saved, because that's all Dean will give.

He's such an asshole.

There's still a pile of sheets by the door. Dean jumps over them.

Cas is scribbling. He looks up when Dean enters.

"This should work," he says, flipping his notebook around for Dean to see. Dean doesn't look at the mess of Enochian. He just looks at Cas and holds out the fistful of garbage.

Cas looks back, and his eyes drop down to the menu in Dean's hand. Carefully, he slides the menu from between his clenched fingers.

"You can leave all that in my room."

"Its trash, Cas."

"It's mine." Squinting, Cas's shoulder's tense. That's not right. Dean isn't trying to pick a fight here, really.

Something must be happening on Dean's face, because Cas's eyes suddenly widen and he looks so fucking sad and he's reaching a hand across the table -

"Cas, you - you -"

Cas understands. "It was my choice, Dean," he says. The same thing he said before. His hand reaches for Dean's cheek. Cas should be running away screaming from Dean, from everything, but his hand cups Dean's jaw. "You deserved to be saved."

This is what Cas has been telling Dean for years now.

It's too much.

"You didn't have to give up-"

"It was the only way."

"Don't tell me you like this." Dean scratches the bedbug rash on Castiel's arm for him. "This -"

"At least I'm not selling lottery tickets," Cas says dryly.

Dean has to hide his face but there's nowhere to go. So he leans forward until their foreheads are touching, heads bowed. There's too much to say. There's nothing to say.

So.

Humanity is still rough on Cas. It still hurts Dean to see it. But Cas has been smiling more. and Dean is getting used to the sight of humanity on him. Liking it, even. Sweat on his skin. Hair sticking up in the morning. Scraping stubble when he kisses Dean's chest. The flex of his arms when he pulls Dean down on top him.

He can teach Cas how to do this human shit.

**Author's Note:**

> well i havent written fanfiction in nine years save me
> 
> hope u liek


End file.
